Hidden Sin: When the past comes back to haunt you

‘Alright,’ Joey’s mam again. ‘Love, I’m not saying you are. I’m just saying you need to think hard about what you might be getting into with this group.’

‘Band,’ Joey corrected. ‘And it’s just a gig, Mam. Christ, we’re not being sold into bloody slavery! Just the chance of some gigs at a new place – a bigger place. A better place. Honestly, anyone would think you didn’t want me to be successful. Is that it?’ A long pause. ‘Jesus, Mam! Stop it.’ Then another. Paula imagined Joey putting his hands on his mam’s shoulders. She didn’t know why, but she could just see it. ‘Look, stop worrying, okay?’ he said again. ‘We’re just going to go and meet up with him, and –’

‘Where?’ She was snapping now.

‘At his club. Where else? And it’s not like we’ve even agreed to anything yet. Christ.’

‘Son.’ Definitely his dad’s voice. ‘Calm down, okay? Your mam’s just concerned, that’s all. As she has every right to be. These people … this whole … business …’

‘It’s just a band, Dad. Not a vice den.’

‘Yes, but …’ Joey’s father seemed to flounder to find the words. ‘You’ve got a solid, reliable job, son. We just don’t want you running away with ideas that might …’

‘For fuck’s sake!’ Paula heard a door opening. And she could now hear Joey – she assumed at least – thumping up the stairs.

Paula stayed in the bathroom a good while longer. Washed her hands and face. Did what she could with what was left of her make-up rather than scraping it all off and starting again. Washed as well as she could before slipping back into her clothes. Brushed her hair – bloody hell, her roots needed doing – and only then, dressed and decent, did she open the door.

Joey was dressed too, pacing in his room, obviously waiting for her.

She felt a frisson of joy seeing him. And the feeling was obviously mutual. No, that hadn’t happened yet, but something had last night.

‘You alright?’ he said. He was standing in front of a Trainspotting poster that hadn’t been there last night, rolling a piece of Blu Tack between his fingers. He didn’t look as agitated as she’d expected. But he was clearly keen to go. She glanced at his bedside clock. Nearly ten. So she’d slept on for a good while, then.

‘Never better,’ she said, sidling up to him and kissing him, on tiptoe.

She placed the T-shirt on his bed, as his arms slipped around her. ‘Let’s get off, shall we? Maybe go and get some breakfast at the Tuck Inn before rehearsals? What d’you reckon?’

‘What I reckon is that I could eat a horse, so that sounds divine.’

He studied her for a moment, not speaking, his gaze travelling over her face.

‘What?’ she said finally.

‘It’ll keep,’ he said. ‘Come on. Let’s go.’

‘So was she alright, you know, your mum?’ Paula said as they drove round the corner. The farewells had certainly been fond enough. Joey’s mam had been keen to make them bacon sandwiches and reminded Paula to tell hers she hoped for a proper catch-up, very soon. But though Joey seemed himself, she was still anxious about what she’d overheard.

‘Yeah, she’s cool,’ he said. ‘She loves you. How couldn’t she? You’re her oldest best mate’s daughter. She’s just, you know, Mam.’

Paula didn’t know. ‘I meant about me staying over.’

‘Course she’s cool,’ he said. ‘It’s not like we’re children, is it? And you slept in the box room anyway –’ he turned to grin at her. ‘More’s the pity.’

And since he didn’t seem perturbed, she decided she should leave it. She had to keep remembering he was their only child, and that Christine was probably over-protective. What with Paula being an ‘older woman’ and all that. She knew what parents could be like anyway. Didn’t realise their kids grew up, had ambitions, could think for themselves. Whether they liked it or otherwise.

They headed to hers first, so she could change into jeans and a T-shirt, and with the minimum of fuss – it seemed everyone wanted to make them bacon sarnies this morning – were soon back in her car and on their way to the rehearsal room, their tummies full of a full English apiece instead. Which wasn’t a rehearsal room, strictly speaking; it was one of the spare rooms in the Old House at Home pub, generally only used on high days and holidays. Matt knew the landlord’s daughter, and when it wasn’t needed they let them use the room for nothing. Which was a godsend because it was hard to find places where you could belt music out without running the risk of annoying all the neighbours.

The other lads had both arrived by the time they got there, and were keen to crack on, so it wasn’t until they’d run through the four new numbers they’d planned on including in their new set that they took a long enough break for Joey and Paula to run their encounter with Mo by them, and to put forward the proposal he’d made.

‘So, no, he’s not from a record company,’ Paula explained. ‘But he certainly seems legit – more than. He lives on Oak Lane.’

‘So he says,’ Dan pointed out. ‘That doesn’t mean he actually does.’

‘But why would he lie about that?’ Joey said reasonably, revisiting what he’d said to Paula before. ‘It’s not like it’s something we couldn’t find out soon enough anyway, is it? And why would he ask us to do a gig for him if he didn’t have a nightclub? The question is whether we’re interested in doing it, isn’t it?’ He spread his palms. ‘Though that’s obviously up to all of you, not me, man. I’m just glad to be playing gigs at all.’

‘And it’s a good earner – well, if it is that,’ Dan said. He, at least, seemed to be up for it.

‘So why don’t Joey and I check it out?’ Paula suggested. ‘Call him and tell him we’d like to go down. We’re both free to see him tomorrow, if he’ll let us. And we’ve got nothing to lose, have we? Not till we decide we want to do it anyway.’

‘No, you’re right,’ Matt said. ‘Do it. Let’s try and get ourselves a piece of Cool Britannia, eh?’

As Paula and Joey were both otherwise engaged with their ‘proper’ jobs – his mam’s words on Sunday morning about that still stung, and his anger was still simmering – it was late on Monday afternoon before they could get into town. Though at least by now they’d managed to find out a little more about the mysterious Mo. And mostly good things. Both about him and his business partner, Nico, Mo having apparently just returned from several years doing property development in Spain, and Nico – who apparently was known as ‘Nic the Greek’ locally – being in the property business too, only in Bradford.

Yes, he’d done time – rumour had it that he’d been a bit of a bad boy in his youth, the mastermind (well, till they caught up with him, anyway) of some big bank job back in the late eighties. But he’d apparently since amassed a legitimate fortune and was a family man these days – wouldn’t harm a fly, as some mate of his uncle Nicky’s had described it. And as far as Joey was concerned, that was all water off a duck’s back in any case.

‘I’m not sure it’s quite that,’ Paula had said. ‘I mean, that still makes him a former bank robber.’

‘And my uncle’s a convicted murderer, and he’s completely sound these days, isn’t he? And it’s not as if either of us comes from whiter than white families, is it?’

A point which Paula could only concede. Her mam’s older brother Vinnie was currently serving a long stretch for robbery himself. And, much as she loved him – well, as much as she really knew him – she admitted that she wouldn’t plan on doing business with him any time soon, however much of a hero her mam had always had him down as.

‘Two peas in a pod, us,’ she’d observed thoughtfully. And Joey agreed they were. And he’d been firm in the belief that had been drummed into him all his life – that you didn’t judge people based on what they’d done in a former life. You took them at face value and saw how it went. Because everyone deserved a second chance.

They turned onto the road Mo had told them they’d find the club – not that he’d needed to, because Paula already knew it – and were greeted by the sight of an enormous thick-set man, standing in the entrance, wielding a heavy-looking chainsaw.

‘Can I help?’ he asked politely, his voice higher than Joey’d expected, while lowering it and kicking a snake of lead out of the way.

‘Alright, mate?’ Joey said. ‘We were hoping to see Mo?’

‘He expecting you?’ the man said, narrowing his eyes suspiciously, as if he were acting out a line out of a film.

‘He should be,’ Joey answered brightly. ‘Spoke to him on the phone a couple of hours back? Joey Parker and Paula Foster.’ He tried not to stand to attention.

The man, who was wearing a regulation yellow hard hat, was dressed in an assortment of baggy clothes – all heavily spattered with various shades of dried paint. He put down the chainsaw just inside the open double doors and wiped his enormous hands on his trouser legs. Then he stuck a hand out. ‘I’m Billy,’ he said. ‘Big Billy.’

He cracked a smile, looking sheepish. Joey took the meaty hand in his and shook it hard.

‘But it’s just Billy, really,’ the man added as Joey released his paw.

Paula shook his hand too. ‘Nice to meet you, Billy,’ she said, giving him a mega-wattage smile.

‘Is he for real?’ she whispered to Joey as he lumbered ahead, leading them both inside. ‘He’s like something off a bloody cartoon!’

They’d stepped into what Joey assumed had once been an impressive high-ceilinged foyer but was currently in the middle of major renovations. Well, what he assumed would be renovations, once they’d put back together all the stuff that had clearly been torn down. The walls were a mess of exposed brick and peeling plasterboard, with wires sprouting listlessly from the remains of sockets, and skeins of power cables hanging like vines from what was left of the ceiling. The floor, too, was a mess of rubble, tools and timber. ‘Mind all the shit,’ the man shouted back at them over the whine of some nearby drill. ‘Watch your step, right? It’s this way to Mo’s office.’

Joey took Paula’s hand – she was in heels (‘Dress to impress!’ she’d told him) – as they weaved their careful way over mounds of ripped-up carpet and a variety of screws and nails. There seemed no way that this place would be re-opening any time soon. But perhaps that was all to the good. A bit more time to think about the decision before committing. Or, more accurately, persuading Matt that the prospect actually had any for them. He’d said he might be up for it but he hadn’t seemed that enthused.

Their giant host, via a short flight of steps and a long walk down a dark corridor, eventually fetched up in front of a door marked ‘strictly private’ and beyond that to another – a sturdy door, made out of oak – on which was screwed a brass plate that said ‘Manager’s Office’.